St. José Sánchez del Río

Who they were

Jose Sanchez del Rio was a boy of Sahuayo in Michoacan when the Cristero War broke over Mexico, the armed rising against the government's violent suppression of the Church in the 1920s, the same persecution that killed Bl. Miguel Pro.

At fourteen, over his mother's resistance, he talked his way into the Cristero ranks as a flagbearer. Captured in his first real engagement in February 1928, after giving up his horse to a general, he was imprisoned in his own town's church, which had been turned into a stable. He was pressured for days to renounce, with his own godfather among the officials offering him escape for a word, and he was tortured. He refused every exit, and wrote his mother a letter that survives, telling her he was happy to die for God. He was killed on the night of 10 February 1928, answering to the end with the Cristeros' cry: Viva Cristo Rey, long live Christ the King. He was canonized in 2016, and Mexican devotion to Joselito is enormous.

Why people turn to St. José Sánchez del Río

Teenagers, for whom a canonized fourteen year old with a documented letter home reframes what courage at that age can mean. Mexican families, with Miguel Pro and St. Juan Diego. Parents praying their children toward conviction.

How to ask their intercession

With a young person, for courage in their actual arena. His stakes do not translate, and pretending otherwise cheapens both; ask instead for the thing underneath, which is knowing what you will not trade.